Having an About section that appeals to others

I know how to write an About page. What I’m not good at is writing an About page that appeals to others. Do you guys have any tips?

I have had the same dilemma.

I settled on a less is more, portfolio content is king type of arrangement. Still haven’t thought of anything useful to put in it yet though.

I just thought to myself what would a potential employer or client want to know about me.

If it were me choosing a developer I wouldn’t care what they were into, nor their life story. I’d just want to know if they could do what I wanted done and do it well. And be able to see lots of examples of work. I would appreciate a little bit of straight to the point about me text, so i had at least a good idea of how much of the process the developer could do for me or where they might fit in my team.

I think this way you set yourself up in a more professional manor for a meeting or Skype or something with a potential job.

Might not be everyone’s cup of tea though :slight_smile:

Cheers

Mark

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I have the insurmountable problem of being a mind-numbingly boring person, so this was also a challenge for me. Much like @MARKJ78, I had to put myself in my potential employer’s shoes to give just enough information to be hire-able without oversharing or offering irrelevant tidbits. There are, I think, 3 major points to hit on:

  1. Where (generally) you live - Interested parties may need to know which time zone you’re in, at least.
  2. Which tech you are most interested in - You should probably mention what you like to do the most. Note, this doesn’t mean you should list every language you’ve written “Hello, world” in, but where your strengths lie.
  3. What excites you - Programming is as much about the focus of passion as it is the breadth of knowledge, maybe more-so. When Big Startup™ is looking to build an online fantasy hamster football league tracker app and in your ‘About’ section you’re like, “I LOVE THE CRAP OUT OF FANTASY HAMSTER FOOTBALL!”, then you’re at least on their radar. Programming, especially web development, touches every aspect of our lives. You’re more likely to get a career doing something you love if everyone knows what you love.
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Good points those, maybe I could de-ice mine a little haha